AN: Surprise! Early chapter is early! You have Mel to thank because she's a rock star and had betad this earlier than expected, so why not? Packy and Kristen also pre read but I tinkered stuff after they've worked on it, so any remaining mistakes are all mine.

Musical inspiration:

Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

So we have consensus: Bella is being horrible to Edward. Here's a bit more background on ExB (if you haven't read the outtakes yet, they describe the night/day of their first gig ever which is mentioned here too). You'll still get a chapter on Friday, which will be the morning after the glow party. See you at the bottom!

CHAPTER 11. Stuff in the Box.

~o~

THEN

~o~

Charlie's house. Forks, Washington. Tuesday, December 4th, 2007.

Bella was sitting on her bed, an array of papers in front of her, when Edward came in through the window.

"That was fast," Bella said, without looking at him, as she arranged the papers in piles.

"Yeah, that was a one-time thing for sure." He stuffed his hair inside his cap after shaking off his soaked jacket. He blew some air on his hands to warm them up while his eyes scanned her.

Bella looked warm, sitting cross-legged over her comforter, in sweats and his grey hoodie. Her hair had gotten so long—it almost reached her knees with the way she was sitting.

"What was it now—too blond?" Bella asked, bringing him back to the conversation.

Definitely, Edward thought. But also, "Too…fidgety," was what he said.

"What?" She laughed, looking at him. Her smile pulled him closer to the bed, while his lips couldn't help but reciprocate. He stood next to her bed and hesitated briefly before he leaned over, and with both hands under her legs, moved her to one side, making room for him.

"She wouldn't stay still." He lowered himself next to her. "Like the whole time through dinner, she was tapping her finger or her foot or something." He gestured with his fingers the annoying tapping motion he had witnessed.

"Maybe she was nervous?" Bella wondered, unfocused, her attention still on the papers in front of her.

"Don't know. Don't care." Edward sighed, basking in the warmth of Bella and her bed.

"Well, that was still a two-hour dinner." She raised an eyebrow in his direction. "I'm sure you had a good time?"

"It wasn't just dinner, Bella." He eyed her back, blinking a couple times.

"What?"

"You know…" He waggled her eyebrows.

"With Miss One-Time?" She turned to him, her eyes widening.

"Sure! I mean if you looked past the fidgeting, she was still hot."

"Ugh, you're such a guy, Edward." Bella shook her head, returning her attention to the piles of papers on the bed.

"How am I supposed to get really good at it for when we get together?" He waited expectantly for her reaction, and for a moment, it seemed the comment had affected her.

"Should I be practicing too, then?"

He could feel the humor leave his face briefly, before he was able to compose his features. "If you want." He shrugged. "I happen to know a good tutor."

She elbowed him playfully in the side.

He reached for the guitar next to her, in an effort to distract himself from the thoughts that had taken residence in his brain. "So, I couldn't get this riff out of my head during the whole encounter with Miss Fidgety." He started strumming the guitar, playing with the chords, and effectively changing the subject.

"Hmmm…" Bella seemed distracted. "Can you write it down? I need to finish these."

He sighed, putting the guitar down, and looking at the papers she was fussing with, quickly realizing it was her college applications. "UDub, really?"

"I mean, it's in Seattle."

When her eyes met his, his heart warmed. They had talked about Seattle several times already. It's where they both wanted to go. Granted, he would follow her wherever she needed to go. But Seattle made the most sense.

"Why are we going to college again?" He wondered out loud, not completely sold on the idea yet. "Can't we just move to Seattle and focus on our music?"

In reality, going to college was an added expense Edward had not planned for. He had already told Esme he would not take any of her money for college, and while he had been able to save most of the money from every summer job at McCarty Construction, it was barely enough to sustain him for a few months in Seattle until he found a job there, hopefully, in something music-related. College was not in the picture for him. He didn't have enough savings for it, and he wasn't looking forward to getting into debt for it either.

"We need something to fall back on. Just in case. Right?"

The way she said we, though—with her eyes like deep chocolate oceans staring right back at him—decided it for him. He would go to college. He just needed to find a cheaper alternative near wherever she ended up. For their music, of course, he rationalized.

"I think that's just a distraction—and an expensive one—from what we should really be doing."

"It's not a distraction." She turned her attention back to her papers, her hair now a wall between his eyes and her face. "It's a backup plan."

He stared at the window, pushing the more serious thoughts out of his head, and going for a joking tone instead. "What am I even supposed to major in?"

"I don't know. English? You're good with words…and lyrics."

"How about Women's Studies?" He waggled his eyebrows at her. He was good with those too, he thought.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I don't think that means what you think it does."

He groaned melodramatically, finally deciding to scan through her papers. "Geez, Bella, you've got all your statements written?"

"Pretty much."

He took the one on top of the pile and read it more closely. It felt intimate, somehow, reading what she had written. It was obvious she had poured her heart and soul into those words. "Shit, Bella, this is good." He swung his legs to the side of the bed, closer to the lamp on her night table. With his back to her, he got lost in her words.

"Yeah?"

He kept reading, with his elbows on his knees and the paper between his legs.

"Yes." He got up from the bed, turning to face her, the paper in one hand, the other hand rubbing his chest, which felt like it was bubbling for her. "The stuff with your mom. Gah…that was-"

"Too much?"

"No. I mean, yes, it is a lot, but it's so beautifully written, and-" His eyes bore into hers from the other side of the bedroom as he struggled for the right words to say what he meant without saying too much.

"What?" She looked up at him worriedly, putting the papers down.

He closed the distance between them in a couple strides and stood right in front of her.

"Have you tried…" he hesitated for a second before lowering himself on the bed in front of her "…looking for her? Or reaching out to her in any way?"

Her face dropped slightly, and he could see the pain this topic brought her. "Not in many years." She intertwined her fingers together, looking down, and Edward wrapped one hand over them. "I think my dad tried a few times. I remember getting stood up on a birthday or two. But after my seventh or eighth birthday, I stopped asking so he gave up, I think."

"Shit, Bella, that sucks." His arms wrapped around her in a hug.

"I mean." She shrugged. "I don't even remember her. I have this image of her in my head from this one lousy picture that I stole from Charlie before he got rid of everything."

She reached for a shoe box under her bed and set it between them. She opened it slowly, with a shy smile to him, and started rummaging for something until she extricated a picture from the bottom. She took one look at it and then handed it to him.

The picture was of Charlie, sans mustache, holding a baby in his arms—Bella—Edward assumed, and standing next to an upright green piano. Charlie was smiling at the young woman who sat at the piano, hands on keys, feet on pedals, totally lost in song.

Bella's mother, Edward knew at once.

He didn't know she was a musician too.

He sighed, but before he could put the picture back, something in the box caught his attention. "Hey!" He took another picture out of the box. "That's me!"

The picture was of him on the drums, at their first Forks Festival. On the back, under the date, she had written all the songs they played that day.

"Swan!" He turned to her with a huge smile on his face. "Wait, was this when-?" He turned the picture to inspect it again, and he could see the bucket next to the drums. His stomach turned at just the memory.

"Yeah, when you barfed after each song throughout the whole show." She shook her head at him.

"You were so mad at me." He laughed in earnest although his stomach felt queasy just at the thought. "I honestly don't know how I got through with it. I haven't been able to have tequila since."

"It wasn't funny. You passed out afterwards from dehydration, and we had to take you to the hospital. I was so worried!"

"Yeah, I don't remember much of that." The laugh died in his throat. He didn't remember much of that day or the night before, but he did remember waking up to Bella next to his bed. "Hey, at least I got through the show and won the bet against Emmett who said I couldn't do it."

"Ugh, boys…" There was no anger left in her tone though, as she looked up at him with flushed cheeks. "I don't think I even got the chance to thank you for sticking it out and playing the full set."

"Pfft…" He waved a hand at her dismissively. "It was our first gig ever. I would have crawled on the stage if I had to."

Edward's eyes continued to peek at the box, since she still had it there, open between them, when something else caught his attention.

"Wait a minute, is this-" He picked the white hospital bracelet from the box before she could take it from him. He laughed again, reading his name on the tag. "Swan, you weirdo, what else is in here?"

He reached for the box, but she snatched it from him. "Not a chance, Cullen." She closed the box and put it back under her bed.

Edward's chest tightened at the mention of his last name. She proudly called him Cullen, and she knew what that meant to him. Even though it had already been roughly three years since Esme adopted him—and he officially changed his name—it still meant the world to him to be called a name he was proud of, especially if it was coming from Bella.

He let out an exaggerated sigh, dropping back on her bed with his hands behind his neck. "I can die accomplished now. I made it into your box!" His laugh was loud and it made him shake from the inside out.

She swung a pillow at him, which he took and arranged under his head, closing his eyes. "I want to know what else is in there." His mind spun with the possibilities, all the memories of him she treasured enough to keep little tokens from in there.

"Not gonna happen."

"Pfft. I'll just wait until you fall asleep and I'll look myself." He expected her glare, so he smiled in anticipation. "I'm only joking," he added to soothe her after a moment. "One day, though?"

"Maybe…" She settled down next to him, side by side, on her bed. Both of them staring at the ceiling.

"Do you sometimes wonder where she is? What her life is like?" Edward asked after a while.

As if on autopilot, when she inched closer to him, his arm moved under her head and she rested her head on his shoulder, and then his hand made it over her hair.

"Sometimes…" She started. "Not as much as before. I used to think about it all the time. Why she left. Why she hated Forks so much. Until I understood, it wasn't Forks she really hated."

Edward turned to her, sensing the heaviness of her words. Her eyes were glistening, and it crumbled him.

"Bella, your mom didn't hate you." His thumb traced over her ear while the back of his fingers rubbed over her cheek. His heart aching to comprehend how she could possibly think that.

"Why wouldn't she? I ruined her life, her dreams, her options…" Bella avoided his eyes, her gaze focused in the direction of her window.

"Bella, that's ridiculous!" Edward couldn't help but scoff. "As if you had any control of any of it."

"It still doesn't change the fact that if it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have left." Her eyes were now pooling with tears, when she turned to look at him. "She wouldn't have broken Charlie."

"Bella, you don't know that." His voice was barely a whisper as he hugged her to him, placing a kiss on her forehead.

She shrugged, sniffling into his chest. It was maddening to him that she blamed herself for her mother's departure. His heart was breaking for her. His chest aching with the need to comfort her.

"So if my parents were drug addicts and abandoned me, do you think it would have been my fault?"

"What? Of course not!" She sat up on the bed, turning to face him, her eyes wide as she wiped the tears under them.

"Well, what you're saying is equally as absurd." He sat up as well, their knees touching as they faced each other.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that-" She looked down at her hands.

"Are you seriously apologizing to me right now?"

"I-" She looked at him, confused.

"Bella, you should be apologizing to yourself," he explained softly, reaching for her hands. "None of it could have been your fault." He intertwined his fingers with hers, while his other hand rubbed up and down her arm.

"Was that what happened to your parents?" she asked shyly, looking up at him.

"I was just making a point. I don't know what happened to them—if they died or abandoned me or what. But I know none of it could have possibly been my fault." He kept his voice low and controlled. The whereabouts of his biological parents was not something he liked to think about.

"Oh…" She looked down at his fingers wrapped around hers.

"C'mere…" He extended his arms to her and when she dropped her head on his chest, he wrapped his arms around her, letting out a shaky breath. He rarely talked about his parents, not only because it hurt like hell, but also because there was nothing to say. He knew absolutely nothing about them. All he knew was the years of misery they left him to endure by himself, until Charlie brought Esme and Bella into his life, that is.

His chest bubbled in anger. It was surprising to him, how much he could resent a person he didn't even know. But it seemed that he had only but scratched the surface at the repercussions of Bella's mother leaving. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, hoping his embrace would somehow alleviate the pain she had been keeping to herself.

Edward wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, like he had done earlier that year, but he knew that her feelings for him were not out in the open, like the picture frame of her and Charlie, or the Janis Joplin poster on her wall. Her feelings for him were stuffed in a shoe box under the bed, so he stuffed his away for later as well. He trusted one day those feelings would break free, and she was going to be ready for forever with him.

~o~

AN: How are we feeling? Love reading your thoughts!
YOU GUYS, someone recommended RFF at The Lemonade Stand? Whoever that was, thank you so much! Means the world to me! You know what other story is on the list? The Procedure by iambeagle (who is not really a beagle). If you're not reading The Procedure yet, YOU HAVE TO! It's beautifully written (as everything Meg does), it's got a plot that will have you at the edge of your seat every single chapter, and the Edward in this story... GAH... where do I start? The fact that my story is on the same list with hers makes my heart do cartwheels...